User:Karanaconda/Deaths of Environmental Defenders and Indigenous people in Colombia

Overview
Colombia had the highest number of environmental defender deaths for the second year in a row, which totaled 65 in 2020 year. It had over 2 folds the amount of deaths in Mexico which was 30 and the second deadliest country for environmental defenders. Colombia will take extreme measures to remove anyone who is trying to conserve forest, water and natural resources. 41 of the deaths were caused by land protection and 17 were due to implementing crop substitution out of the total 65 deaths. Together Indigenous and Afro-colombians form 14.4% of the population they faced a third of the attacks. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic budget cuts were made to security leading to less protection and increased vulnerability as people were confined to their homes and less mobile. According to the Last Line of Defence "laid responsibility for attacks on environmental defenders – and the destruction of the natural world that they are striving to protect – on the nefarious practices of corporations and big business, alongside the complicity or neglect of governments that ‘have been all too willing to turn a blind eye and fail in providing their core mandate of upholding and protecting human rights. They are failing to protect defenders – in many cases directly perpetrating violence against them, and in others arguably complicit with business."

Afro-colombians
In the sixteenth century, African slaves were brought to Colombia by Spanish colonizers, where mining was the main occupation for slaves. They reside in a geopolitically strategic and resource rich locations and often find themselves in the literal crossfire between conflicted groups. In addition to facing armed rebels, many large companies including the government take advantage of Afro-Colombian territories and illegally extract resources. In 1996-1997 a movement called the Comunidad de Autodeterminación, Vida y Dignidad of Cacarica (CAVIDA), ended with 85 deaths and displacement of 4000 people. Many other activist who were fighting for equality were assassinated, like Francis Hurtado. He was the first leader for the other Afro-colombians and was killed in 1998. Land grabbing is a huge problem that Afro-Colombians face, and ends up leaving them in isolated and food insecure land. It's very common for land grabbing to be violent and may even lead to sexual assault. This leads the poverty and low income households, 41% of Afro-Colombians live in poverty. Small scale mining is a way that Afro-Colombians can make ends meet but now is threatened in two ways by illegal mining and licenced mining which is still illegal. Illegal mining is done without permits and government approval usually done by rebels and gangs. Licenced mining requires licenses and government approved but is still illegal as they don't have prior consent and approval of the Afro-Colombians. Afro-Colombians have right to three percent of land yet 42 percent of illegal mining happens there and this isn't the only problem they face, in 2019 within two weeks they faced two massacres due to illegal miners trying to mine for gold. Both these illegal mining leads to degradation of the Afro-Colombian land, by contaminating water, ruining soil, and deforestation. Children have signs of mercury poisoning as well. This all leads leads to further marginalization, poverty, gender-based violence and the overall destruction of natural resources.

Local Farmers and Crop substitution
Crop Substitution is a program implemented by the United States Agency for International Developmen t. It involves persuading farmers to switch from growing narcotic plants to legal crops which they would provide materials such as seeds and tools and technical skill. From November 2016- June 2020 75 people have been killed implementing the project. 80 percent of the killings were mainly concentrated in five departments Antioquia, Cauca, Norte de Santander, Nariño and Putumayo. These places are known to face structural poverty, and have high levels of illegal activities. The plan was also failing as it didn't account for certain details one, is that the alternative crops that farmers were supposed to grow were not profitable. As Colombia imports plenty of food which the farmers can not compete with those prices as the multinational companies can sell it for much cheaper. You also profit more according to a 60 year old farmer "A pound of paste, he says, sells for more than one ton of corn."That's why everyone grows coca,". Lastly, impleming crop substitution puts a target on your back as it's against the drug traffickers wishes and they in fact do the opposite and pressure locals farmers to grow more coca. The increase in coca production over the last two decades has lead to mass deforestation of rainforest, 5.9 million acres to be exact. Two reasons for the deforestation are that coca excels in wet lowlands and the rainforest is a hard place for intruders including the police to locate and raid. They use extremely toxic chemicals for pesticides and fertilizer such as paraquat and endosulfan which are in the top category of toxicity according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which later enter waterways. This is just the tip of the iceberg, millions of gallons of kerosene, sulfuric acid, acetone are dumped into the land and cause permanent damage to the soil, flora, fauna, and water.

Environmental Defenders
Environmental activist have been heavily targeted in Colombia and the real amount of deaths is higher as there are many unreported cases. In addition, it doesn't include activist that have been threatened or assaulted such as Maria. She was leaving a workshop, where she was teaching farmers to grow coffee instead of coca, when the head of the village wanted to see her. She was taken to a house where she was tortured for helping poor families get out of the drug trade and supporting women's rights. She was then raped, and not sure how many partook. From 2018 to 2020, female environmental defenders as increased near 50 percent. Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Colombia has increased by 83 percent in 2020. In the first three months 64,000 hectares of forest were cut down vs the 35,000 in 2019. National Parks Serranía de La Macarena, Tinigua and Chiribiquete were heavily impacted. Jorge Quintero a forest ranger was assassinated in Risaralda as he was opposing the destruction of protected areas. Jamie Monge and Jorge Oramas were both killed in a three month span as they were planning campaigns to help conserve the Farallones national park from illegal mining and deforestation. In January 2021, Fermiliana Meses a town councillor in Argelia was killed as he advocated crop substitution and opposed dropping chemicals from planes on illegal crop as the damage on the ecosystems and public would not be worth it. The plan is to spray Glyphosate to kill coca plants but this comes with many hurdles. Although they won't spray it on protected areas there still is a risk of it finding its way there with things like wind and same goes for crops of local farmers. From 11 countries 17 experts from International Agency for Research on cancer(IARC) determined that its group 2A the groups being, group three not classifiable to its carcinogenicity, group 2B possibly carcinogenic, 2A probably carcinogenic, and group one carcinogenic to humans. They also found in a study over 5 years, it lead to increase risk of miscarriages, skin problems, and respiratory problems. The national colombian university found that it negatively affects the respiratory and nervous system of fish. After the Colombian Peace Process between the Colombian government and the guerrilla group more conflicts has risen in the remote isolated areas. Armed gangs are fighting for control over land for trafficking of drugs, illegal mining and logging, especially in Afro-Colombian or Indigenous land. Anyone who tries to oppose this will be threatened if not killed. A senior advisor at Global witness said via email “Despite this, the government continues to pursue an economic growth agenda based on land-intensive industries – Colombia is currently the fifth-biggest exporter of coal and has significant oil, gas and palm oil sectors,”.